Yasukuni Shrine

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi started the New Year by visiting a shrine honoring Japan's war dead, a decision that is certain to rile countries in Asia that Japan invaded and brutally occupied last century. The prime minister has insisted on making annual trips to Tokyo's Yasukuni shrine, which honors about 2.5 million war dead, including executed criminals such as war-era Prime Minister Hideki Tojo. Japan's neighbors say the shrine glorifies Japan's militaristic past.

Japan's prime minister marked the 58th anniversary of World War II's end with apologies and messages of peace, even as prominent lawmakers visited a shrine criticized as glorifying militarism. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi expressed regret for the destruction inflicted by his country. Every year Japan's official message of peace competes with conservative lawmakers filing into Tokyo's Yasukuni shrine -- used to whip up nationalist fervor during the war.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made an offering last month to a war shrine that many in Asia consider a symbol of Japan's past militarism, but he stopped short of visiting the memorial. Abe's decision to make an offering to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine without paying a visit appeared aimed at keeping a rapprochement with China on track while giving a nod to his conservative supporters.

Japan's Supreme Court will rule next week on a suit challenging the constitutionality of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to a Tokyo war shrine, court officials said. The ruling on a lawsuit filed by relatives of Japanese, Chinese and South Korean war dead would be the first time that Japan's top court has weighed in on whether the visits violate the division between religion and the state, a court official said.

Japan's new prime minister, Morihiro Hosokawa, has said he will not visit a controversial war shrine Sunday, the 48th anniversary of Japan's defeat in World War II. "There have been many controversies over this in the past and I must be very careful," Hosokawa told a televised news conference in Kagoshima, in southern Japan. "Therefore I will refrain from making a (shrine) visit." The Yasukuni Shrine in central Tokyo enshrines the spirit of Japan's 2.

Japanese court Thursday turned down a claim for $30,000 in damages over a visit by former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone to a shrine honoring Japan's war dead, a court spokesman said. The ruling fell short of determining whether the visit had violated the constitution, which calls for separation of religion and state. The group of plaintiffs filed the suit against the state a year after Nakasone became the first postwar prime minister officially to visit Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Aug.

Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu, in a speech commemorating the end of World War II 45 years ago, said Japan will never again wage war. "We will never repeat the catastrophes of war, and each of us has been given the important duty of helping establish lasting peace," Kaifu told the crowd of about 7,000 at a service in Tokyo. Before the service, 13 of the 21 Cabinet ministers visited the Yasukuni Shrine, Japan's main monument to its 2.

Re "Revisionism Tokyo-style," Opinion, Jan. 18 Postwar Japan is often juxtaposed with Germany, and for good reason. Tuesday is the 50th anniversary of the Elysee Treaty between France and Germany, which sealed their reconciliation. Meanwhile, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is recanting a previous administration's scant "apology" for World War II-era war crimes. Can one imagine German Chancellor Angela Merkel paying homage to Nazi war criminals? If not, why is the world silent when Abe visits the Yasukuni shrine, where the souls of 2 million war dead - including war criminals - are said to be enshrined?